Ivanka Trump’s New Book Women Who Work Is an Insult to Working Women

This week, Ivanka Trump released her new business book/self-help guide/marketing tool Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success. The chapter titles urge readers to "Dream Big," "Make Your Mark," "Stake Your Claim," "Work Smarter, Not Harder," "Tip the Scale," and "Lead with Purpose" — all emphatic statements implicitly directed at one subset of women: those who work corporate jobs and who, like Ms. Trump, have plenty of help to make sure their lives run smoothly. The book’s overarching message: If women were just a little more passionate, they too could be like Ms. Trump and have the lives they dream of — never mind barriers such as the gender pay gap, workplace sexual harassment, insufficient family and medical leave policies, and the inaccessibility of quality, affordable child care.

From the beginning of the book, President Donald Trump’s daughter goes out of her way to convince us that being born into a life of privilege as a Trump was just one little reason for her success alongside many. The other factors she names are predominantly her own shining personal qualities.

"Today, I'm an executive vice president at The Trump Organization, cofounder of Trump Hotels and Scion, and founder of my own eponymous fashion brand. Undeniably, one factor in my success has been the doors that my family's name and my privileged upbringing have opened," she writes in the book’s introduction. "I'm deeply grateful for all the opportunities afforded to me, but they alone didn't guarantee my success. Curiosity, passion, hard work and perseverance have enabled me to prove my value to myself and others beyond my surname." This serves as an explanation of why she is qualified to "provide solutions that educate and empower women to be their best selves, both personally and professionally" so that any woman can "become a more enlightened leader who creates the life you want to live."

It soon becomes clear, however, that these “solutions” Ms. Trump has in mind are tailored to, well, Ms. Trump — a white, cisgender woman born into wealth and prominence, whose ascent has hinged on her family name. Her new role in the White House is the most glaring example: Despite her utter lack of professional experience in government or policy, she has been made the de facto women's issues expert in her father's administration, apparently through a potent combination of nepotism and biological happenstance. She's the president's daughter and she has a vagina, so she gets to decide stuff about ladies, her actual expertise be damned.

Ms. Trump insists, however, that she owes her success to her passion. There's a lot of talk about passion in Ms. Trump's book; it's offered up as a panacea for practically any challenge a woman might face. Ms. Trump recommends that women leave jobs at companies that don't inspire them, and warns them against waiting to do so until they "[don't] have bills to pay." (Is she aware that most Americans have less than $1000 in savings?) She preaches the necessity of drafting an "extended job title" to express one's multi-faceted interests and future aspirations — Ms. Trump, for her part, tells us that not only was she an executive vice president in the Trump organization as she was writing her book, but also a serious runner, manager of her own company, and hands-on mother to three children.

Reading this account, one can't help but wonder about the women who help care for these children or otherwise help keep Ms. Trump's household running, thus enabling her to be a woman who works by dispensing professional advice to other woman. Does her household help feel like the only thing holding them back from professional advancement is a lack of "passion" or "purpose"?

"My father has always said, if you love what you do, and work really hard, you will succeed,” Ms. Trump writes. What about those women who work to pay their bills and support their families rather than to pursue their passions? According to a 2016 brief from the U.S. Department of Labor, over a third of working women are mothers with children under 18, and mothers are the primary or only earners in 40 percent of American households with kids under 18. Mother-only families are on the rise: They make up almost one in four families with children under 18.

This book would be a myopic, self-congratulatory one regardless of who had written it. But Ms. Trump is the president’s daughter, one who reportedly has his ear, and she wants you to think she really cares. "My father's presidential campaign afforded me an unprecedented opportunity to advocate for change relating to issues that are of critical importance to me and to all women, particularly those with children,” she writes in the book. “As someone who has made it her life's mission to empower women in all aspects of their lives, I felt it was my duty and obligation to take a stand on issues that contribute to wage inequality, such as our country's failure to mandate paid leave for American workers and the lack of safe, affordable, high-quality childcare. While I never expected to have this heightened platform — and stepping into the political fray was daunting — I recognized both the privilege and the opportunity to use my voice to dramatically advance an important conversation that benefits parents and families nationwide."

More than 100 days into her father’s presidency, we’re still waiting to see that conversation “dramatically advance.” In fact, it’s backsliding. What has Ivanka Trump done so far? She sat beside her father as he congratulated a female astronaut; she's tweeted about libraries and the idea of equal pay; and she has stayed silent while her father has rolled back equal pay protections for women, limited women's access to essential health care, pushed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and offered up a child care “plan” that does nothing for the working class. What Ms. Trump’s new book does best is make the hollowness of her grand statements painfully clear. More than a roadmap for working women, Women Who Work is a reminder that Ms. Trump’s "mission" to help women is nothing more than words.